James is, in its simplest sense, a retelling of Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the perspective of the slave Jim. The original is loved and criticised (particularly around its complex handling of race relations) in equal parts, and Everett engages with it with a similar mix of obvious love for the source material and a clear sense of purpose in its interrogation of some of its more problematic aspects.

Erasure focuses on the author Thelonius “Monk” Ellison. In the mid-1990s, we find him in a rut with his writing, tired of being told by those around him in the publishing industry that he’s “not black enough". He’s an academic and his work reflects his own interests, such as modern retellings of Greek satires, and pissing off those around him with provocations that are of deeply niche interest - such at his lecture which parodies Barthes’ S/Z in the style of Barthes’ S/Z (a provocation to the average reader of Erasure, too, when this lecture is reproduced in exhaustive detail early in the book!) Outside of his writing, he’s dealing with everyday realities of life: a mother succumbing to Alzheimers, a brother who comes out of the closet - destroying his marriage, and a sister who pays the ultimate price for her work at an abortion clinic.